Logistics
Packing acrylic so it arrives undamaged: what actually works
Almost every transit-damaged acrylic part was damaged because it could move inside its packing, or because something rested on its face. Both are preventable.
Logistics
Almost every transit-damaged acrylic part was damaged because it could move inside its packing, or because something rested on its face. Both are preventable.
Acrylic is light, stiff and scratches easily. That combination makes it easy to ship cheaply and easy to damage expensively. The three failure patterns are movement inside the packing, load on a face, and unprotected corners.
| Pattern | What it looks like on arrival | Cause |
|---|---|---|
| Movement | Chipped corners, scuffed edges, parts out of position | Packing too large, or no internal restraint |
| Face load | Scratches or a crack across the middle of a panel | Something stacked on the carton, or parts packed flat with weight above |
| Corner impact | A broken or chipped corner | No corner protection, or the part on the outside of the pack |
| Edge chipping | Small chips along an edge | Panels packed without interleaves, sliding against each other |
| Film damage | Torn or missing film on one face | Film applied to one side only, or removed in transit |
| Moisture | Paper interleaves stuck to the face, print transfer | Cardboard or paper packed damp, or stored in a humid container |
Every part in a stack is separated by a foam or corrugated interleaf. Every corner on a panel over 300 mm is protected with a foam or plastic corner block. The corner is where the energy of an impact arrives, and an unprotected corner on a 1,200 mm panel will chip under a knock that would not mark the face.
A crate with no label is a crate that gets opened, emptied and repacked wrongly. Every crate carries the following on the outside.
We photograph every part before packing for exactly this reason: a condition dispute is resolved from evidence rather than from memory, and it usually takes one exchange rather than two weeks.
For a multi-store programme, packing is part of the service rather than an afterthought. Parts are packed per store, the carton is labelled with the store number, and a pack list is inside with a manifest summary outside. This removes the sorting step at the distribution centre, which is where most rollout damage happens, not in transit but in double handling.
Up to about 600 mm and a light part, yes, with interleaves and corner protection. Above that a carton flexes and corners break, so a crate or a rigid baseboard is needed.
No. Film stays on until installation. It is the only protection the face has in transit and on site.
Vertical in a crate, separated by interleaves, with corner blocks. A panel shipped flat under load will crack or scratch, and a large crate shipped flat cannot be handled safely.
Photograph the crate, the part in place and the break faces, and send them with the packing list. We replace transit damage, and the photographs make it a single exchange.
Yes, drop-shipped per site with the store number on the carton, or consolidated to a distribution centre. We quote both because the cheaper freight option is not always the cheaper outcome.
Packing is quoted as a line item and argued about more than any other. The useful way to look at it is as a ratio to the value of what is inside the carton, because that ratio is what decides whether the specification is sensible.
| Level | What it is | Typical share of goods value | When it is right |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 — Bulk | Poly bag, single-wall carton, no interleave | 1–3% | Flat parts going to a workshop that will process them further |
| 2 — Standard export | PE film, foam interleave, corner protectors, double-wall carton | 3–6% | Most bonded assemblies and anything with a polished face |
| 3 — Retail-ready | Individually boxed, printed insert, barcode label, master carton | 8–15% | The carton goes on a shelf or into a fulfilment centre |
| 4 — Crated | Plywood case, foam-lined, bolted to a pallet base | 12–25% | Single large panels, mirrors, anything over 1.5 m on the diagonal |
The ratio moves with part value, not with size. A 300 mm light-guide panel worth USD 40 needs level 3 packing because a scratch makes it scrap; a 600 × 400 mm opaque divider worth USD 6 needs level 2 at most, and spending level 3 money on it is a 10% price increase for protection nobody asked for. The question to settle with your buyer is not "how much packing" but "what does a damaged unit cost us at the other end".
Two things push a job up a level and are worth flagging early. First, edge-polished faces: a polished edge is the most damage-prone surface on any acrylic part, and it needs interleave even when the rest of the part does not. Second, anodised or printed hardware: a rivet head that rubs through film in transit produces a complaint on arrival that no inspection at our end would have caught.
What we will not do is quietly upgrade the packing and put it in the price. If a job reads as level 2 and you have had damage before, we will say so and quote level 3 as a separate line, so you can see what the extra protection costs before deciding.
Sea, air or road, how many handling points, and how long it will be stored: each changes how we pack.